Sunday, May 25, 2008

Skippy at last

We went to the National Film and Sound Archive this afternoon. This is supposed to be the library for all audio and video related products, even including movie poster. 1.3 million of them!

It is hard to relate their large collection with the small size of their exhibition room though. I wasn't too impressive by their exhibition either, which mainly plays black-and-while movies, e.g.Australia's first Oscar winner, documentary Kokoda Front Line (1942, by Ken Hall and Damien Parer. Also on display was movie costumes, e.g. Ned Kelly's helmet looks like this one.

What made the visit worthwhile was a one hour presentation showing samples of Australian-made movies overtime. It started with a rather fuzzy clip of the 1st ever Australian, and global feature length film The story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Crocodile Dundee (1986) was the last shown. Overall it was an informative and enjoyable hour. The best bit was I finally saw Skippy, a cute grey kangaroo I heard a long time ago during lunch time--all my Australian colleagues' face lighted up a little when Skippy was mentioned. Today a lady sat behind us could obviously recite every line in what was showing. It feels Skippy is the national pet, if there is such a title.

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